AT&T has unveiled their third quarter earnings, which among other things indicate the company added the most iPhones ever in a single quarter. According to AT&T, they activated 3.2 million iPhones during the third quarter, with forty percent of those customers new to AT&T. The data suggests that despite AT&T's network headaches, the lure of the device is simply too great for many to resist. iPhones represented 74% of the 4.3 million postpaid, integrated devices activated by AT&T last quarter as AT&T tries to extend their exclusive distribution arrangement with Apple.

More shiny new iPhones means more people paying $30 a month for data (whether they use that much data or not), and AT&T's wireless data revenues jumped 34% from last year's, to $3.6 billion. AT&T continues to see huge subscriber additions in wireless. The company added 2 million new subscribers to bring their wireless subscriber total to 81.6 million. Once lured in by the iPhone, many customers stay because of the iPhone (and long term contract ETF penalties), as AT&T continues to have the lowest customer defection rate in the industry.

On the U-Verse front, AT&T says they added 240,000 net U-verse customers, bringing their installed total U-Verse customer base to 1.8 million. According to AT&T, 90% of customers who order U-Verse TV also get broadband service. 60% of customers who order U-Verse TV also sign up for U-Verse VoIP service.

Of course AT&T's problem isn't wireless or U-Verse, it's their continued losses in traditional landline service. Landline revenues continued to drop, falling 7.1% to $16.3 billion from $17.6 billion one year ago. Those landline reductions will likely mean additional layoffs, according to engineers speaking anonymously to Broadband Reports. "A significant workforce reduction is coming and will be finalized by end of October," says one source, who says specific layoff numbers have not yet been revealed.

In the summer of 2008 we noted that AT&T was no longer taking new orders for their Callvantage VoIP service. The company of course wanted to begin pushing their U-Verse Voice VoIP product a little harder, but employees also hinted to us that AT&T was cooking up a new bring your own broadband (BYOB) VoIP offering as well. That BYOB service still hasn't arrived, but AT&T this week gave a concrete date for the CallVantange shutdown, which previously was vaguely scheduled for sometime this year. According to an e-mail being sent to customers this week, CallVantage will officially be shuttered on Novermber 17. Hopefully, the seven of you still using AT&T's CallVantage service find this information useful.

AT&T, Comcast and Verizon all came under fire recently for suggesting the baseline definition of broadband should remain low (as in, between 200-768 kbps), given that means they'd have less work to do -- and less government oversight into their affairs. AT&T's comments to the FCC (pdf) went one step further, arguing that video gaming should not be considered an essential component (like e-mail and browsing) when discussing broadband definitions, and is instead an "aspirational" service. Says AT&T:The gaming industry subsequently got offended, issuing their own filing with the FCC that of course argued that gaming was not only the highest of art forms, but a necessary educational tool: story continues..

After quietly soft launching their new video portal earlier this month, AT&T has now officially announced their new "AT&T Entertainment" video portal. According to the AT&T press release, the portal offers free TV shows and movie clips "via an agreement with Hulu," which is apparently why it looks very similar to Hulu itself. As it stands, the offering is little more than a placeholder for AT&T's future Internet TV ambitions, be they online content that's integrated with their U-Verse service, or part of an authentication "TV Everywhere" system. So why not just go to Hulu? Good question, and one that AT&T's going to have to answer in short order.

AT&T today launched their VDSL-based U-Verse service in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, as the company continues to ramp up deployment of the service across former BellSouth markets. The company also recently launched the service in Memphis and portions of Alabama. With all of these launches, AT&T's been patting themselves on the back for bringing a competitor to cable, though some of the customers AT&T's trying to woo sometimes aren't always impressed by AT&T pricing or speeds. Cox is AT&T's primary competitor in Baton Rouge, and consumer advocates tell the Advocate AT&T doesn't try very hard when competing on price:Baton Rouge customers can enter their zip code here to see U-Verse pricing, and to see if their neighborhood is being serviced by AT&T.